


Riptide

by That_Familiar_Feeling



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blue Lion centric, Lance centric story, Langst, amputee lance, graphic depictions of injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-10-26 02:31:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10777620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Familiar_Feeling/pseuds/That_Familiar_Feeling
Summary: Everything came crashing down around him. Faster than he could blink and his world was in shatters once more…The fight, the failure…(don’t think about all those people you failed)the wormhole fracturing from the outside in(don’t think about everyone being lost forever)the searing pain of being ripped apart(don’t think about mamma...don’t think about her never knowing what happened to you...oh god don’t think about it breaking her heart)Lance is dying.---The amputee Lance au that got far to involved with story.





	1. Chapter 1

The Blue Lion was being volleyed around in the quickly disintegrating wormhole. Her sensors and alarms were blasting full volume at the highest threat level feasible. Lance was trapped in his chairs harness, as helpless as his lion against the power of the tainted wormhole.

Once, when he was a little boy, Lance had gotten caught in a riptide.

He remembers that day vividly, it’s always a pressure in the back of his skull. He can still feel the sand shifting out from under his feet. The day was clear and bright...it was a beautiful day.

When he got dragged under the water- it was like being pulled into a watercolor mosaic. First he was caught awe-struck, but then he was fully aware of the water closing. The feeling of _dread_ that made his heart sink.

He barely made it out alive that day. Dragged to shore half-dead and staring listless at the cheery clouds…

 

He’s dying again- staring out of his cockpit at the wormholes kaleidoscope effect. Watching the sand slip through his fingers as space and time rip each other to pieces.

The causes of death seem endless at the moment. Probably some broken ribs from being throttled in his own harness, probably the head wound he had when he was jerked backwards as the final shot hit the wormhole.

Definitely the gaping hole that made up the majority of his lower leg.

 

Before the Collapse (what would undoubtedly be the moniker for this calamity) he was meant to be saving a world. What was supposed to liberate a planet-was the untimely demise of it.

Voltron had failed. Irrevocably. They came in too confident, they let themselves get cornered.

They watched as the planet was detonated from the inside out…

They had tried to help. Of course they tried to evacuate people from the chaos.

(They couldn’t save nearly enough..)

 

Lance had shuffled to traumatized aliens onto the castle ship, he was going to go back for me- he had to save more…

He never saw the attacker coming. It was a stupid and careless move that he only just deflected from his chest down to his leg.

_It was meant for the heart. Meant to kill him before he even registered the attack in the first place._

It had felt...like someone took a red-hot iron rod and drove it into his leg. Straight into his calf muscle and charred the flesh around the wound. He shot the attacker through his screaming, multiple shots that tore through the chest plate and helmet.

He was cursing every being in existence. Voice shot from the ferocity of his screams and body trembling as he dragged himself to his lion. He doesn’t really hear the orders to _run_ but his lion does. She takes off and he can’t argue because of the absolute agony that’s engulfed his leg.

The white hot pain seared across his skin like the delicate burn of tissue paper. Steadily spreading throughout his leg and with each increment the pain grew worse.

 

The wound was being worsened as the pair tumbled head first into the abyss. Lance was seeing white spots in his vision, throat burning and voice shattered in his screaming.

Maybe he was still screaming...maybe he couldn’t hear it over the cacophony of the Collapse.

He knew he was praying though. Praying through his tears for _someone_. God? Some ancient deity? His mamma…

It was all mashing together and his heart was threatening to roll out of his mouth and splatter against the console...

 

_Cub...my cub...my paladin.._

With her voice, everything goes blank. A solid wall of motion that sweeps across his mind and disconnects him from reality. Where one would expect the tinnitus of silence, just a steady heartbeat.

_Lance...mijo...cub...it’s okay...I have you…_

_I’m with you…._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This may be a little weird if you happen to be reading this a second time. But like everything in life, this story will be evolving. I'd added about 200 more words to the first chapter and cleaned it up a little. Sorry if it's startling, but I assure you the end product is both better quality- and less likely to agitate me further.


	2. Chapter 2

When Lance came to it was such a subtle affair that when the reality of the situation struck it was like being blindsided by the broadside of a bull.

He was being coaxed, rushed into opening his eyes and a voice desperate to get his hands moving. His hands leapt to the controls and he followed that soft voice as attentively as he could considered his didn’t even remember his own name at the moment. 

A sharp jerk of the controls, a rattling squeal of atmosphere meeting metal. 

Through the murky fog he could see the rapidly approaching shore and all at once he was drowning again.

* * *

 

A lonely solar system, a generous handful of light years away from the nearest galaxy.

Orbiting a distant but all-baring star and cloaked in the neuron debris of an ancient solar system.

Inky green-blue water lapped at a glittering shore- whitecaps dissolving in a hiss against a more jagged cliffside. The rock and sand had an iridescent glimmer that reflected a permanent dusky sky.  

Lying prone on the shore was the Blue Lion, splayed on her side with claws dug into the soft sand.She was half submerged, a deep gouge of sand and muck being swallowed up by the rising tide- like she had desperately hauled herself from the depths of the unknown.

Sheets of metal had peeled away from her flank and shoulders. One long fissure threatening to collapse her chest cavity entirely. But the mortal wound was a puncture to her heart…

Lance was suspended at an angle, body straining against the harness.He was deathly silent and the cockpit was becoming an encompassing tomb. 

It took the incessant nudge in the back of his head to stir him. A quiet and weak voice begging him,  _ Please...please wake up… _

He tried. He really genuinely tried. But everything felt so heavy and his eyes were stinging when he tried to pry the lids apart. It felt like he was on one of his family’s boats- rising up on a swell and then plummeting back down on the drop.

_ Wake up… oh Lance...I’m so sorry _

His eyes did open, but they stung with tears and blood. 

He could feel the wound on the back of his head, pulsing behind the crack in his helmet. His helmet...it had shattered under duress. His visor cracked and little shard punched into his forehead. 

His vision squirmed as he tried squinting- felt like he was willing more than commanding the images to piece together. 

The cabin was a mess- some of the panels had been shaken apart and the mechanical door was sparking wildly as it shuddered and tried to either close or open...caught between the two. 

The main power had been severed and only a dim emergency light swept across the wreckage- violet and pretty when it flashed into his vision. 

_ Lance! Lance don’t…. _ Her voice in his mind tapered off, and he could clearly imagine the weakness that radiated within it. 

But he couldn’t understand the warning...and maybe he still didn’t when his eyes rolled over to what was left of his leg. 

 

In middle school Lance had loved Science.

One of the year long experiments was a study on basic decomposition. 

He’d picked his favorite fruit to study, a big pretty Peach. 

It started out pretty cool. Watching the skin wrinkle up and pucker where the stem was located.

And then the bruises came, concave dips filled with mottled browns on the orange and tan skin.

The teacher made them move it to airtight containers- the smell was so sweet but when he breathed it in it made his lip curl.

Then the bruises split open, and thick syrupy juice popping out as the flesh expanded and then shrank. Mold cropping up at the edges and by two days devouring half of the fruit. 

All of it began at a singular dip in the skin, and then spread in every direction…

 

When Lance looked down at his leg all those years later, he had a vivid recollection of the sweet sick smell of rot and must that came with mold.

Through the tears that refused to end and the blood that dripped off his eyebrow. He saw the peach his leg had become.

Where the dip was- a once neat hole that went straight down to his shin bone, there was just a gaping, festering abscess.  The burning had seared the armor layers right off his leg, melting the fabric into his skin and wrinkle it all together into a disgusting shriveled mess. It had completely eaten away at his foot and was creeping up over his knee in thick fungus like tendrils…   
  


Whether it was the idea of his leg melting like a rotten apricot...or the sudden wash of  _ Pain _ that came with seeing the damage every sweep of the light revealed..

Lance had just enough energy to swing his head to the side and retch up gutful after gutful of bile. 

He was trembling in the seat, watching the remains of his foot slowly slip further and further away from the rest of his body…

This time when he heaves, its dry and wracks a greater sob from his wrecked throat.

His head is swimming again and he can’t hold it up on his own. The pain is coming in steadily worse waves. His legs feels numb and on fire simultaneously. Until he realizes it’s not his leg he’s feeling but the  _ decay _ steadily eating him. 

 

The tears are bloody, and there’s snot running past his chin in similar rivulets. He sobs and cries and it’s wet at first but it tapers off into dry shuddering things.

He wants to scream, realizes that the low whining sound is probably his own regardless.

He wanted to die...death was easier than this hell…

_ No..no no no… _

The voice washed over him with more strength now. Carrying with it a muffled blanket of numbness. 

Though her voice itself was weak, he could feel her lay across his mind and drape her warmth around him like a protective blanket.

 

_ My child...my stars...my paladin…. Look away...look for me… _

 

He rolled his head away from the gore Following the catch of light in the corner of his eyes he saw the primary windshield spark, his lions futile attempt to gain a visual of some kind.

“Azu…” he whispered, voice a scratch in the dark.

_ No..hush...please sweetheart hush.. _

I’m scared...he wanted to say. I don’t want to die here… don’t leave me alone…

_...I would never… _

He tried to breath, tried to force down the terror and whisper of darkness that clawed at him.

But he felt like a child. Like that little boy who was dragged under by the ankle and forced to watch his life slip away through bubbles and glistening water.

Maybe somewhere there was a rational part of him that could find a way out. 

That somewhere was the first part of him to die today.

 

He was going to die here. The acceptance of it was as familiar as the prayer that slipped past his bloody lips.

“Hail...hail mary…”

Blue’s core shuddered. The metal framing of her body creaking and whining as she settled into the now mostly surmounting surf. She was anchored only by her claws and the sand was ashing away faster than she could bring herself back to functions.

“Full of grace..”

 

_ Lance….Lance..I’m here...I’m here child… _

There was a light coming from the more forested shoreline. Dull but persistent. Blue’s metaphorical hackles raising as the possible threat revealed itself.

“My lord is with me…”

Blue watched the life drain from her paladin’s lips. Watched his soul slowly bleeding out. 

She watched the foliage part and watched as something approached.

 

_ I’m here. I’m here Lance...stay with me. _

_ We’re not done yet. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna high key rec that you listen to O Magnum Mysterium during the whole, "animation" scene and pretty much throughout this chapter.
> 
> So sorry this took a wait! I have once again, damaged my leg...yeah...woo..Enjoy!

Before Lance blacked out, there was a second of bright and blinding light that came through cracks in the window. Blue and scorching, some of it landing on Lance’s face so gently that it felt like a paintbrush against his skin…

After Lance slipped under, however, the light returned. This time it poured _outward._ Thick and thin tendrils that caused fissures in the glass and piece by piece tore it apart. The light poured out on the dark floor of the unknown planet and roiled on the ground like vines come to life. The vines gathered, changed and shifted their forms until a skeletal structure formed.  

All at once, standing before her own carcass was the blue lion. As real and visceral as the tall trees of their crash zone. She was larger than an earth lion, and her fur was a delicate shade of cornflower until it came to her muzzle where it became darker like the tuft on her tail and behind her fore legs. 

Her eyes scanned the surrounding with a piercing yellow gaze, quickly adjusting to being tangible for the first time in eons. 

_The sacrifice. The purest form of honor and dignity. When the body is mangled and the blood is spilled that releases the spirit from its core...then that spirit may wish to return the grace of mortality._  

Blood was spilled all across her past control panel. 

The hull had gone dark. The sparking metal and bearings gone cold and silent.

As well as her cub… 

Azul forced her way into the heart of her body- the cockpit had been placed at an angle that made the floor slope upwards. She stepped over pools of blood and stained her paws crimson. Her cub hung limp from the harness system that had stalled- a pesky problem that she dealt with with a swiped of large and endlessly sharp claws. She caught the boy against her back, fear and concern washing across her in a tremor through her muscles. He was bleeding out quickly, and she had no way to know if there was help on the way...but she would not leave him here to die. 

Again she left her body, careful to keep the paladin on her back and to not disturb his leg to much. She must be swift...this terrain was a mystery but she _must be swift._  

_Let the wind guide me..._ she thought before trotting off down a clearer part of the forest floor. 

The trees rose tall and mighty here. Sparse, similar to the Earth trees that she had seen when she studied the humans archival systems.  _ Sequoias...ancient giants that watched vigil over sacred land for centuries...sentinels. _

The soil was packed, cold to the touch due to the temperature of what seemed to be the entire planet.Sparse vegetation other than shrubbery and moss. An endless mass of trees…. 

Something came through though. A subtle wind that ruffled her fur into a new direction.The wind felt thicker as she followed. Like a being had answered her prayer and had sent her a herald. She followed dutifully, careful to not jostle her precious cargo but still maintain speed. She didn’t have enough time… 

The trees were thinning out though. Grass began to brush her paws and then her underbelly as she found herself lead into a small niche of the forest. Here the typical blue flora gave in to bright yellow flowers and white moss. The air was a constant motion here too, moving through the grass in circles and rustling the flowers as she walked past. Some petals moved and emitted a faint glowing dust. 

She stopped halfway through the circle, ears straining to hear the footsteps getting closer. 

The wind settled, steeling her resolve to wait...no matter how badly she wanted to rush forward. _He is dying.There is no time for this pleasantry._  

Through the grass, a small creature appeared. Almost canine like, like a larger strain of fox- the fur was mottled greys and blacks and some flecked white.

Eyes as sharp and inquisitive as her own, it paused to study the much larger predator and her passenger. 

**_Step forward children...time slips through your grasp like stars through the sky_**  

The wind had warbled through the grass. A voice not real but not simply imagined filled both minds and at once the two creatures stepped forward to meet each other. 

The native one studied them both once more, sniffing at the injured paladin leg before snarling with disgust and a whine of sympathy.They turned towards Azul and motioned with a swept tail to follow, barking harshly a few times. 

**_You will be met- go swift paragon_**  

Without pause both took off. Leaving in their wake a diluted cloud of twinkling dust. 

The fox creature was faster, but pulled its strides to keep the lioness in sight. They ran till the ground became a well tread footpath, and the sky became clearer as trees became sparser.

They ran for perhaps two miles before the trees ahead gave way completely.

The creature slowed, ears perked high and eyes alert. Coming to a stop at the very brink of the woods, they listened to the sound of rapid foot fall across the low grassland and watched a small mounted party crest a hill before them.

The creature lead on, both parties meeting at the foot of the hill. 

The aliens were also eerily canine like, with distinctly dog like noses and fur coverage. Each had a distinct set of painted markings- but two had similar fur and form. Their mounts were large as well, and oddly bear like? Massive paws with outstretched caws that looked blunt and optimal for digging. Each one lumbered and carried its rider with dedication.

The largest had mostly grey fur, but their was distinct grey forming around the muzzle and flattened ears. Bright amber eyes that matched Azul’s for wit and might…

They spoke, but she couldn’t translate their language now- it only sounded like harsh barks and trills. The aliens seem to accept that, attention now solely focused on her cargo. One of the more lithe aines dismounted and approached cautiously. 

Azul stood patiently, willing to trust this beings only so they could save Lance’s life…

The alien stooped and examined his leg, making the same face as the small creature who had placed itself at the leader’s feet.

Another series of noises, two aliens going back and forth while the one examined the human more closely before ushering everyone back over the hill. 

All nodded and she remounted her beast, aligning herself with Azul and watching with a worried face. The combined party set out quickly, unrest clearly pushing their feet faster.

Azul hastened herself, her form already exhausted from the animation the travel that she was unfamiliar with- but for her cub she would stride this planet ten times. These people would aid them, they could do  _ something _ . She anticipated what though…

**_Paragon. Your lives are in capable hands._ **

The voice returned with another brush of wind that was now obviously warmer than their surroundings. It’s presence was felt by the aliens as well, who each began a series of complicated verbal chants. One word repeating over and over…

**Specata…**

**_His life bleeds into my land...I will not waste such precious life._ **

**_Welcome strangers...I pray that you are not too late._ **

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this mental image in my head for months so now YOU get to have it!  
> Yay!!
> 
> I know it's short but this is to the point tbh 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Kudos, Hits, Comments are all beloved!


End file.
